THE MERCER REGATTA.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VII, Issue 11, 14 March 1891, Page 9

THE MERCER REGATTA.

Last Saturday the Mercer Annual Regatta was held at that locality on the Waikato River, and was attended by , uite a number of visitors from Auckland by special excursion train. A page of illustrations elsewhere will afford those readers of The Graphic who have not visited Mercer some idea of the locality, and of the very interest ing aquatic sports which comprise the Regatta. Mercer is now about the only place in New Zealand where a genuine Maori canoe race can be seen, and the Maori sports constitute the chief attraction in the Regatta there. The Maoris of the vicinity entered into the preparations for the regatta with grqat zeal, and in order to get up a race for large canoes (Wakatiwai), one hapu had a very large canoe cut out at Mangatawhiri, on the Waikato, last month specially for this contest. The sight of a number of wellmanned canoes jiaddling up or down the river gives visitors some slight idea of the spectacle the noble Waikato often presented in the old times of Maoiidom, with whole fleets of plumed and decorated iVukatana sweeping along its surface on some warlike excursion. Those times are changed now, and at the most all the use John Maori can find for his canoe is to paddle himself and leahine or a few jiotatoes and pigs across the river. One of the most amusing contests in regattas of this sort is the canoe hurdle race, which often, as depicted in our illustration, causes great fun through the inability or tardiness of the craft to leap the obstacle. The Maori wahine race, too, is often productive of much merriment. We should mention that it is very greatly owing to the untiring exertions of Mr ‘ Tommy ’ Porter, a well-known Mercer boniface, that the success of these annual regattas is due.